Abstract
Despite attempts to engage students, undergraduate instructors are often challenged by low motivation among students to study outside of the classroom. The current study adapted motivational interviewing, which is often used with therapy clients ambivalent to change, to target college student motivation to study for exams. Findings indicated improved performance on exams following the brief 15- to 20-min intervention. The present study supports both the effectiveness and feasibility of this brief, classroom-based motivational intervention. This psychological intervention might be particularly fitting for psychology classes because an explanation of the intervention itself can serve as an additional learning opportunity.
Motivation is a vital precursor to student study behavior. Students low in motivation engage in less exam preparation (Pressley, Yokoi, van Meter, Van Ettan, & Freebern, 1997), whereas students high in motivation have more effective study habits and earn better grades (Simons, Dewitte, & Lense, 2004). In fact, motivation to achieve accounts for 11% of the variance in grades over and above that accounted for by intelligence quotient (Lounsbury, Sundstrom, Loveland, & Gibson, 2003). Instructors may therefore want to bolster student motivation, yet doing so may be challenging for many professors. Although instructors can provide students with information on course content or even study strategies, this does not guarantee that students will be sufficiently motivated to devote time to studying outside of the classroom.
A myriad of research has examined factors associated with motivation to learn (e.g., Jacobs & Newstead, 2000); however, less is known about motivating students to study. Students report being motivated by factors such as their perceptions of their instructor (Wilson, 2006), perceptions of course utility for a future job (Simons et al., 2004), perceptions of material relevance, interest in learning the subject matter, and desire to earn good grades (Gorham & Christophel, 1992). Importantly, having explicit course goals appears to impact course performance. For example, first-year undergraduate students who were prompted to set goals for how long they would engage in course preparation performed better on exams than students who did not set such goals (Fleming, 2002). These findings suggest that student goals might play a key role in motivation and course performance.
Interventions used in clinical populations have already demonstrated success at bolstering motivation to change and actual behavioral change. In particular, motivational interviewing (Miller, 1996) is a psychotherapy approach designed to increase motivation to change behavior by evoking a discrepancy between the behavior and the individual’s goals. Motivational interviewing uses five principles: (1) expressing empathy to the client, (2) developing a discrepancy between goals and current behavior, (3) rolling with resistance (i.e., defensiveness about changing is met with empathy and a discussion of what is difficult about changing), (4) supporting the client’s self-sufficiency (i.e., not telling the client what to do), and (5) avoiding argumentation (Miller & Rollnick, 1991). That is, motivational interviewing is a collaborative process in which the therapist plays a nonjudgmental and nonauthoritarian role. From this perspective, argumentation and direct persuasion are expected to create resistance and pit the therapist against the client. Instead, the collaborative spirit of motivational interviewing involves taking the clients’ perspective and de-escalating resistance by validating clients rather than opposing them. Rather than instill motivation, the therapist honors the client’s autonomy by eliciting the clients’ own motivation and assisting the client in finding a discrepancy between their goals (e.g., desire to be a positive role model for one’s children) and behaviors that are inconsistent with those goals (e.g., coming home drunk). An additional motivational interviewing strategy, decisional balance technique, consists of exploring the less good things about changing the target behavior—reasons not to change—and then exploring the good things about changing the behavior—reasons to change (Apodaca & Longabaugh, 2009).
The effectiveness of motivational interviewing has been especially demonstrated for substance abuse in terms of increased readiness to change and actual behavior change (see for review Lundahl, Kunz, Brownell, Tollefson, & Burke, 2010). Such interventions have been used to target a wide array of other behaviors (e.g., Knight, McGowan, Dickens, & Bundy, 2006; McMurran, 2009) and are often supplemented with an educational component (e.g., Murphy et al., 2012). Research has suggested that relatively brief administration (5–10 min) of motivational interviewing can be effective in health-care settings when contact time is limited (Britt, Hudson, & Blampied, 2004).
One might expect that a relatively brief intervention could also be helpful for college students. Motivational interviewing could be adapted for the classroom by asking students to conduct a decisional balance (i.e., weighing the pros and cons of studying) and to consider discrepancies between their goals (i.e., course and career) and their study behaviors. Such an intervention might increase motivation to study for exams and, as a result, improve performance on exams. Indeed, previous attempts to integrate motivational interviewing in the classroom have been promising. For example, Becker, Miller, and Bishop (2011) examined the use of a 15- to 20-min classroom-based, motivational interviewing style intervention targeting student completion of course tasks (e.g., reading assignments). Students from four general education college courses volunteered to participate and were randomly assigned to receive the intervention during the middle or end of the term. During the intervention, students were asked to think about the benefits and challenges of the designated course task and were then prompted to consider making changes to their behavior (i.e., making improvements in their course task). Following the intervention, students demonstrated increased performance on course tasks. It is particularly notable that students who received the intervention during the middle of the term not only showed improvement but also maintained these gains throughout the term despite the typical decrease in motivation among students in the middle of the semester. In another study, college students who sought assistance from their school’s psychotherapeutic service centers and were asked to describe the discrepancy between their studying intentions and their actual initiation of studying while enrolled in a seven-session, small group (seven people maximum) intervention (Michielsen, 2008). This included information regarding procrastination, exploration of each student’s study behavior, and goal setting. Students (n = 26) reported lower procrastination after the intervention relative to their self-reported procrastination before the intervention. These studies support the use of classroom-based motivational interventions in college courses; however, research has not yet examined whether brief motivational interviewing is a useful technique for increasing exam performance among college students.
The present research examined the effectiveness of a brief, classroom-based motivational intervention for motivating undergraduate psychology students to study for exams. Students in two upper-level psychology courses participated in a 15- to 20-min motivational interviewing style intervention using a decisional balance exercise. Student exam performance following the brief intervention was compared with exam performance without this intervention. It was hypothesized that students would perform better on their exam after participating in the intervention than when the exam was not preceded by the intervention. Additionally, student exam performance following the brief intervention was expected to be superior to the exam performance of students from the previous semester who had not participated in the intervention.
Method
Participants
Participants were 54 undergraduate students from 2 psychology classes during the spring semester. The study was conducted at a large urban state university in the mid-south. Although demographics are not available for the participating students, the mean age of students enrolled at the university is 26, and 61% of students are female (Office of Institutional Research, 2012a). Students enrolled at the university are predominantly Caucasian (52%) and African American (38%). Sixty-six percent of students at the university are enrolled full-time.
The first class was a morning section of a personality psychology class taught by the first author. Of the 62 students enrolled in the personality class, 28 voluntarily participated in the study (n = 19 absent and n = 13 declining to participate). The second class was an evening section of an abnormal psychology class taught by the second author. Of the 55 students enrolled in the abnormal class, 26 voluntarily participated in the study (n = 18 absent and n = 9 declining to participate). Two students were excluded because they were enrolled in both classes. Students who attended class and agreed to participate in the study performed better on the first exam of the semester before the study began (M = 82.69, SD = 15.90) than students who did not participate (M = 76.64, SD = 17.84), although this difference did not reach statistical significance, t(112) = 1.90, p = .06. Additionally, de-identified exam scores from 111 students enrolled in the 2 psychology classes in the fall semester were obtained.
Procedure
All procedures were conducted with the approval of the institutional review board at The University of Memphis. Two weeks prior to the exam, a research assistant attended the class and obtained informed consent for the study, while the instructor waited outside of the classroom. The motivational intervention was conducted once in the abnormal psychology class 2 weeks prior to the midterm and once in the personality psychology class 2 weeks prior to the final exam. Therefore, the abnormal class received the intervention shortly before the midterm but not before the final, whereas the personality class only received the intervention before the final exam but not before the midterm exam. This was done intentionally, so the intervention was not confounded with a time in the semester during which students may be more or less motivated. Additionally, student exam grades were used from the same classes and instructors in the previous fall semester when the intervention was not provided.
Intervention
The instructors provided the motivational intervention in a presentation format, which included PowerPoint. The instructor paused at appropriate points to allow students to consider topics and write down personal reactions, which were not collected by the instructor. Students were not required to participate but were encouraged to share their thoughts regarding each component during group discussion, as they felt comfortable.
The presentation was modeled after relevant components of the alcohol abuse motivational intervention for college students described by Murphy et al. (2012). This involved five steps: (1) goal setting, (2) information relevant to discrepancies between goals and behaviors, (3) a decisional balance exercise, (4) problem-solving around barriers, and (5) setting behaviorally specific goals. As such, first, students were asked to think about or write down the answer to the question “what are your goals for college, your career, and this class?” (1–2 min).
Second, students were provided with information relevant to academic success including the following: the average graduation rate for the nation (National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, 2014) and the university (Office of Institutional Research, 2012b), census data indicating that individuals with a college degree earn nearly twice as much relative to those with a high school degree (United States Census Bureau, 2011), and a graph depicting a US$3,980 salary increase for every one-point increase in grade point average (Oehrlein, 2009). Students were then presented with a slide with the following questions: “How often do you study? How do you study? How does this compare to other students?” followed by a slide that indicated the relation between choices (i.e., time allocated to out-of-class studying) and academic success (2–3 min; Landrum, Turrisi, & Brandel, 2006). This component was designed to make explicit the link between study behavior and student goals to help students recognize potential discrepancies between their own behaviors versus behaviors that might be more consistent with their goals (i.e., studying).
Third, students were led through a decisional balance exercise. This involved asking students “what are the not good things about studying?” with examples provided by the instructor such as having more time for family and friends. When students provided examples, the instructor responded by verbalizing agreement and empathy for the difficulties surrounding studying (i.e., rolling with resistance; 2–3 min). For example, if a study said, “It is boring to study,” the instructor might reply, “mm-hmm, it can be boring to study, that’s true.” Next, students were asked, “what are the good things about studying?” with examples provided by the instructor such as feeling more prepared for exams (3–4 min).
Fourth, students were then encouraged to identify and share barriers that might interfere with increased studying with the question “what things make it hard to study?” with examples from the instructor such as work schedules. Students were then asked to develop potential solutions for these barriers with the question “what can we do about these barriers?” (3–4 min). Importantly, throughout the intervention, the instructors maintained a tone of nonjudgmental understanding of the challenges and barriers students must overcome to be successful in college.
Finally, students were asked to form specific behavioral goals with regard to studying and were provided with examples such as “I will study for two hours on Mondays and Wednesdays in the library where there are fewer distractions” (3–4 min). In all of these components, the students were allowed to generate and share their own ideas and goals without criticism from the instructor.
Classes
The instructors had approximately the same amount of teaching experience. Both classes were worth three credit hours, a required course for psychology majors, and did not have prerequisites for admission. The teaching style for both classes included a lecture format accompanied by PowerPoint presentation with approximately 20% of each class session devoted to group work, class assignments, and discussion. Students did not receive a study guide for any of the exams.
Measures
Both classes included three exams given at approximately the same time in the semester. The first exam was excluded from this study to allow students time to acclimate to the testing format. The second and third were worth 20% and 30%, respectively, in the personality class and worth 15% each in the abnormal class. There were 31 and 35 multiple choice questions on the midterm exams and 40 and 37 multiple choice questions on the final exams in the personality and abnormal classes, respectively. The multiple choice portion of the test made up 35% and 50% of exam grades in the personality and abnormal classes, respectively. with the remainder of the grade comprised of brief writing prompts. For the purposes of this study, performance was measured using the percentage of correct multiple choice answers, as these items were believed to be a more objective measure of student achievement.
Statistical Analysis
The effect of the intervention was assessed in two ways. First, using data from a single semester, analysis was conducted using a 2 (classroom) × 2 (intervention) analysis of variance in which the intervention (motivational/control) was a repeated measure factor because each student was assessed under both conditions during that semester. Second, using data from the preceding semester, analysis was conducted using a 2 (classroom) × 2 (intervention) analysis of variance in which the intervention (motivational/control) was a between-subjects factor comparing exam performance following the intervention to the previous semester exam performance when no intervention occurred.
Results
Within-Subject Intervention Effect
Exam performance immediately following the motivational intervention (M = 79.81, SE = 1.61) was higher than exam performance by the same students on a different exam that was not preceded by an intervention (M = 76.72, SE = 1.47), intervention main effect F(1, 52) = 7.30, p = .009, d = 0.25. 1
Analyses revealed that students in the personality class performed better on their exams (M = 83.49, SE = 1.99) relative to students in the abnormal class (M = 73.0, SE = 2.06), classroom main effect, F(1, 52) = 13.28, p = .001, d = 0.99. As such, one might wonder if the better performance following the motivational intervention might be explained by the timing of the intervention in the two classes or other factors that may have differed between the classes. Therefore, an analysis was conducted to assess whether the difference between the motivational intervention and comparison control scores varied depending on class membership or the timing of the intervention. Exam performance following the intervention versus control did not differ systematically as a function of the class students attended, Class × Intervention interaction F(1, 52) < 0.01, p > .9.
Students in the abnormal class received the intervention before the midterm but did not receive the intervention before the final exam, allowing for an exploratory analysis of the sustainability of the intervention effect indicated by the simple effects of the Class × Intervention interaction. Exam performance following the final (M = 71.52, SE = 2.12) was somewhat lower than exam performance following the intervention (M = 74.57, SE = 2.32); however, this difference was not statistically significant, F(1, 52) = 3.44, p = .07.
Between-Subjects Intervention Effects
Exam performance immediately following the motivational intervention among students in the spring semester (M = 79.82, SE = 2.02) was higher than exam performance for students in the fall semester, when they did not receive the intervention prior to the exam (M = 68.00, SE = 1.41), intervention effect F(1, 161) = 23.10, p < .001, d = 0.80.
Once again, analyses revealed that students in the personality class performed better on their exams (M = 76.87, SE = 1.71) relative to students in the abnormal class (M = 70.9, SE = 1.77), classroom main effect F(1, 161) = 5.81, p = .02, d = 0.28; however, exam performance following the intervention versus control did not differ systematically as a function of the class students attended, Class × Intervention interaction F(1, 161) = 3.46, p = .07.
Discussion
The current study tested the use of a brief motivational intervention targeting student study behavior. Students performed better on an exam following a brief motivational intervention than on an exam not preceded by the intervention. This effect was not accounted for by the class membership of the students or the timing of the intervention. The intervention also appeared to maintain some of its effect 7 weeks following the intervention; however, these findings should be viewed with caution given the alternative explanations for this observation, such as differences in midterm versus final exam motivation. Consistent with prior literature (i.e., Becker, Miller, & Bishop, 2011; Fleming, 2002; Michielson, 2008), the findings of this study support the use of a goals-based motivational intervention in the classroom to boost undergraduate exam performance. There is relatively little class time (15–20 min), which for many instructors may be a small investment toward increasing student commitment to studying the material. Furthermore, we also believe that by explaining the purpose of the motivational intervention to our students, we offered psychology undergraduates the opportunity to engage in a psychologically relevant learning experience.
Previous research has demonstrated a relation between student motivation and student perceptions of how much their instructors cared about them (Wilson, 2006). Thus, it is possible that the intervention was effective due to increased perceptions of caring by the teachers rather than the particular exercises. Future investigations might therefore attempt to identify the effective ingredients of this intervention.
Although past research has pointed to the lowered effectiveness of motivational interviewing when administered in a group relative to individual format (Lundahl & Burke, 2009), as well as positive effects for verbalizing the intent to change (Gollwitzer, 1999), individual sessions may not be practical for the classroom. However, students showing early signs of difficulty in courses might benefit from an individual motivational session with the instructor, teaching assistant, or peer tutor if motivation is suspected to be a problem. Students who have lower motivation relative to their peers also tend to report personal problems and time constraints (Greene, Miller, Crowson, Duke, & Akey, 2004), which are challenges particularly well suited for the problem-solving component of motivational interviewing. One might expect more effort to be exerted for this task in a one-on-one format. Importantly, students frequently absent were likely underrepresented in this study; thus, findings may be more representative of more conscientious students. This limitation would likely persist in any group administration format though, with frequently absent students possibly benefiting from more one-on-one interventions focused more generally on class involvement.
Future studies can improve on this research further by employing alternative research methodologies. For example, the current study was opportunistic with existing course structures and attempted to rule out some potential third variables (class membership and timing effects). Although practical barriers in classroom settings often preclude random assignment and we believe the current study offers both ecological validity and presents a useful novel classroom approach (Dunn, 2008), future studies could randomly assign participants to conditions. Extended follow-up testing to determine the longevity of the effect would also be informative, as would an assessment of the optimal time during the semester to administer the intervention for maximal benefits.
The results of the current study suggest a brief, group-based intervention may be effective for increasing college student exam performance. Given the important links between student motivation and their actual study behavior, this intervention could serve as a valuable, as well as feasible, tool for college instructors.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a Centers of Excellence grant awarded to the Department of Psychology at the University of Memphis by the state of Tennessee.